


Lily's Eyes

by Tarlan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Challenge Response, Halloween, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 08:58:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2541842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus went to the meeting with Voldemort prepared to die, but hoping to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lily's Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Debris_K](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Debris_K/gifts).



> Halloween Challenge 2014 - Trick or Treat Challenge
> 
> Debris_K asked for Harry/Severus!

How could he not love the boy when Harry was a part of Lily? So how could Dumbledore expect him to stand by and do nothing when Voldemort came for Harry? It would be like asking the sun to stop rising in the morning or the stars to not shine at night. Love was fickle like that, and weaved a spell more powerful than anything Voldemort or Dumbledore or even Salazar Slytherin himself could master. It played with the hearts of all living creatures; it had played with his heart, leaving him dead inside until he saw her eyes again in the face of a young boy.

 _He has her eyes_ , Dumbledore had said, but Harry was a part of James too, and Severus had used that to distance himself from the boy he had sworn to protect even if it meant offering himself up to the darkness enshrouding Voldemort. He had loathed James and had blamed him most of all for Lily's death.

The tears streamed down his face, the only part of him not paralyzed, not dying from the venom coursing through him from Nagini's bite. He needed Harry to know the truth. He needed him to... not hate him. To understand that he had begged Dumbledore to help save Harry's mother all those years ago; to save all of them if necessary, even his nemesis, James Potter.

He needed Harry to absolve him of the heavy burden of guilt he had carried for so long, weighing down his soul. He needed Harry to understand the price he had paid for the choices he had made, and how he had tried to make amends by becoming a double agent, hidden inside Voldemort's inner circle. 

He needed Harry to know how his feelings for Lily had opened his heart to love again - and save her son. Perhaps then his soul would rest in peace. Perhaps he would find Lily and James waiting for him beyond the veil, willing to forgive him the role he had played in their deaths. And perhaps one day he would be reunited with the courageous boy who had slowly stolen his heart from Lily.

"Take them," he begged of Harry. "Take them to the Pensieve."

His focus narrowed as darkness crept around the edges of his vision, and his last sight was of Lily's eyes in Harry's face, forgiving him as the darkness claimed him.

...  
...

His eyes snapped open moments later, and he drew in a deep breath as his last sight became his first, with Lily's eyes staring deep into his own. Except it wasn't the ghostly figure of Lily waiting for him beyond the veil separating life and death.

"Potter," he stated softly, surprised by the smile he gained upon saying the name.

He blinked when he realized he was no longer in the Shrieking Shack, or part of a painting adorning a wall in Hogwarts. He felt substantial rather than wraith-like - not an apparition or ghost. Severus moved his fingers, drawing in a breath when he felt Potter's hand wrap around his, warm and strong and all too real.

"It took me years to master the Elder Wand... and to find the right potion to negate the effects of Nagini's venom." Potter gave a crooked smile.

Tiny creases radiated outwards on the familiar face that was no longer that of a boy but of a man. This was Harry; older and hopefully wiser than the child he had once known and protected.

"You were never my best pupil, Potter, but I suppose you got there eventually," he stated sourly, only to gain a laugh in return.

In truth he had not known if the potion taken just before that last meeting with Voldemort would actually protect him. He had gambled on Voldemort using Nagini as his killing instrument rather than risk using Dumbledore's Elder Wand to cast a killing spell upon him - in case it backfired.

Of course he hadn't gambled on falling into the Little Death, sleeping away at least three decades going by the lines on Harry Potter's still strangely boyish face.

Severus startled when a hand brushed aside strands of hair that had fallen partially across his face, confused by the tenderness of the gesture until he looked back into those eyes and saw what he had always wanted to see reflected back.

Love.

"I looked into the Pensieve that day... and saw you for the first time. The real you. And I have looked many times since." Harry leaned in and kissed him softly. "You stole away my heart too, my Half-Blood Prince."

END  
.


End file.
